Sacred Texts  Zoroastrianism  Index  Previous  Next 
Buy this Book at Amazon.com

Pahlavi Texts, Part IV (SBE37), E.W. West, tr. [1892], at sacred-texts.com


CHAPTER XVIII.

Nîkâdûm Nask.

1. The third section is the Rêshistân ('wound code'), particulars about cutting, tearing, cleaving,

p. 42

disembowelling, stabbing, gnawing 1, rupturing, hacking, mutilating, and withering 2; such as are all called wounds. 2. The upheaving circular movement of a certain serpent-scourge 3, the throwing down of the person, and the flow of blood from the bodies of the people.

3. How the various members are divided into seventy-six that are more particularly called principal, which are comprised in two classes; two of these, which are clothed and different, one from the other, are female, and some out of the surrounding parts (girvôgânîh), which are apart from eight of the principal, that are comprised in the members of the two classes and among those seventy-six—and which, in like manner, are different one from the other—are female, and are of different purpose and different design, one from the other.

4. These, too, namely, when any one, through an assault, produces, for any other, stupefaction, swelling, or leanness, blackness 4, or paleness, shortness, or tallness, want of intelligence, much eating, little eating, or moderate eating, indolence, or diligence, or dulness of hearing; or he wishes to speak some words, and they strike him in return; or one altogether diminishes any one's speech, sight, or hearing,

p. 43

wisdom, strength, or semen, milk, or pregnancy; or when one destroys the spleen (spur) or milk of females, or, in revenge (gîfar), kills his son outright; or when they would inflict a wound upon a wound, and one's blood goes streaming forth.

5. Also about an assault with one, two, or three weapons, or more, in conjunction; or they may commit it on the spot, or in confederacy, or as a first offence 1. 6. About the measure of a wound when a two-edged sword (dôbarakŏ) plunges down, the area (sarâî), walls, and surroundings, and the shape which is plunged; that which is hacked, or cleft, or mutilated, or a torrent of blood streaming; the affliction (vamang) of the furious serpent-scourge (mârvanô) 2, and the length, glitter, and weight of the weapon.

7. The ritual for the departure of a wound and the departure of pain, watching over it for the duration of three nights or a year, its greater wretchedness or less wretchedness, its cure (spôrîkîh) or incurableness, and whatever is on the same subject. 8. Trivial enumerations, and decisions upon each separately.


Footnotes

42:1 Or, perhaps, khvâyisnŏ (compare Pers. ‘hâyîdan) may mean 'biting.'

42:2 The last four terms are, in Pahlavi: skônisnŏ, khûrdŏ kardanŏ, tâshîdanô, and khûsînîdanô.

42:3 The mâr-ganô (Av. khrafstraghna), we are told in Pahl. Vend. XVIII, 6, 'may be made of anything, but a leathern one is good' (see also Bd. XXVIII, 22). Intended as a snake-killer, it was misused as a scourge for human beings.

42:4 Assuming that vêsîh, 'excess,' is a miswriting of siyahîh.


Next: Chapter XIX